There was a lot of development in the Diamond Bankruptcy yesterday, but honestly we were so exhausted to cover them that this summary would have to cover the latest if we stood in the case of more bombshells we had.
§When you read this, a bombshell is happening, and it is a 10:30 hearing that approved a large number of all diamond assets for Union Entertainment (aent) purchases. Given all that has happened, other issues may be covered.
§§After all the bombshell revelations on Monday – The court trustees filed a motion to liquidate diamonds under Chapter 7 and filed diamonds with WOTC payments, Diamond sent an email to the retailer, apologizing to the retailer and saying they would submit some urgently needed paperwork after all.
Dear Diamond Client:
You may have read or heard that the U.S. Trustee Office recently filed a request to convert a diamond bankruptcy case. The request was due to the unfortunate but inevitable issue of Diamond, which was delayed when submitting certain reporting information to the court.
Diamond is finalizing the report information and will be conducted in the next few days. Once this happens, we fully expect that the U.S. trustee will withdraw its request.
We are very sorry for any concerns that these situations may arouse.
§Brett Schenker had the biggest news later in the day: A motion for Diamond authorized the sale of all its assets to a universal distribution and shiny pop/advertising crowd, mainly previously reported, but with some changes. The biggest change: The purchase price is lower than before.
Universal will buy affiliate distribution (we know now minus WOTC, but Pokémon also reveals Pokémon’s special treatment for $42 million). AD Populum (now known as Sparkle Pop LLC) will buy Diamond Comics distributors, CGA and Diamond Select Toys for $7,459,050. Diamond UK seems to be going to Universal Studios, but in a separate deal. We will return to this point.
The bid for this merger is only under $50 million, less than the previous $69 million total, including $49,634,950 from Universal for Diamond UK and Alliance Games Distributions, and $19,495,050 from Parkle Pop/Ad Populum from Diamond Comics Distributors, CGA and Diamond Select’s Diamond Comics publisher.
And, if you want to know who the general and advertising population is, in the words of Chief Restructuring Officer Robert Gorin, they are “alternative, unusually well-known buyers who are happy to work with us. These companies have a strong balance sheet and, importantly, unrivalled presence and experience in our core industries.”
The last time Diamond tried to sell its assets to this portfolio bid, it mentioned Sparkle Pop – it appears to be a holding company made up of Ad Populum owners Joel Weinshanker For the purpose of this purchase. Weinshanker’s other businesses include NECA Toys, Ruby Clothing, Enesco, Party City, Wizkids, and runs the Elvis Presley property. The deal appears to be through a shiny pop structure to separate the books.
I don’t have the time (or energy) to browse over 200 pages of this latest APA file, so here’s Schenker’s summary:
Diamond is now looking for court approval for the move. It seems that from the general purchase amount is now $42 million minus “average net working capital”, plus “inventory obtained on the deadline”, plus “account receivable received on the deadline”, minus “any amount paid due to the critical supplier of the deadline and paying it as the Cure Cure amount as CURE and assumptions are all the assumptions of the purchaser. So…math.
AD Populum/Sparkle Pop LLC purchase price is “$7,459,050″, less any significant supplier payments owed by the Seller under the General Asset Purchase Agreement, and the Seller owes Seller owed NECA, LLC, LLC, Wizkids/neca/neca, llc, llc or scope paid by the scope out of it, rather than the sole scope payment, but the sole payment of the Price”), (ii) plus, if any, (iii) subtract; (iii) subtract, the accounts payable are paid due to the critical supplier on the closing date; (iv) subtract, any amount paid by the Purchase Permit as the amount of treatment relative to the amount of treatment obtained by the business, excluding other distribution contracts (co-fixed contracts) (co-purchase price), “purchase price”, and “purchase price”.
§ As for British Diamonds, Universal Pictures previously signed a non-binding letter of intent to buy diamonds in the UK in January (!). If I read this document correctly, the protocol will form the basis of a separate protocol.
I should note here that Diamond UK has been a particularly confusing part of the whole chaos and I don’t have much depth coverage. Unlike the American version of Diamond, the British version comes with Marvel, DC, Image and all the cartoonists, which is actually profitable. I won’t go into its history here because it’s long and tangled, but it can be said that its roots can be traced back to the multiplayer war in the 90s and were acquired by diamonds when they bought the Titans. Its position in the Diamond family’s entrepreneurial family is also a bit strange, as it is composed of two independent holding companies, Comic Exporter, Inc. and Comic Holdings, Inc. Co-owned, each of the companies owns 50% of the company. Trying to unravel this has caused me to open so many windows that I am now crashing it, so I’m leaving it behind now, except saying that the league does not include Diamond UK in its scanned APA, which shows that Universal has always taken it into the acquisition.
§ So, will this leave our place? With all the crazy twists and turns, I’m not willing to make any guesses, but it seems that Diamond always wants Universal to buy it, while Universal Pictures always wants to buy Alliance games and Diamonds – they’re perfect for their existing toys, games, comics and magazine distribution businesses, and as a Canadian company, they don’t even have to worry about China (in theory).
As for Diamond’s comic business…the cruel fact is that it doesn’t have much. Since January 14, 2025, I have spoken with many people, publishers, retailers, creators, distributors, toy makers, all of whom say they will survive the bankruptcy of diamonds. They saw handwriting on the wall and had other plans in place. There will certainly be pain points, and some small publishers will go bankrupt or fundamentally change their business model, but I will do some research in future works.
§ Free Comic Day is also not called an asset in this vortex. It will be held as usual on Saturday, May 3, but many think it will be the last FCBD, at least in its current form. Similarly, this topic is worthy of analysis.
§ Finally, I want to say that I made some humorous comments in the report to break the legal person, but I was keenly aware that diamonds are made of people, and I’m pretty sure some people read my reports on diamonds and I never want to light up the cost of humanity. A reminder of this is that I commented yesterday on the story about the Elter suit written by the Diamond staff. It seems worth citing in detail here:
Yesterday afternoon, Diamond should have had a full-handed town hall. Chuck Parker canceled it about an hour before he started. His email concluded, “Thank you for your continued patience.”
Wear patiently.
It’s a company full of anxiety, tension, horror employees who discover everything that’s happening with the company and futures through comic media, not you and the company. News about the conversion of the filing to Chapter 7 and liquidating the company’s bankruptcy ended yesterday on the workday. It was not officially resolved until the email at 11:22 last night. Clock officially acknowledged the new alliance lawsuit. I didn’t hold my breath. After the auction, the first time to buy any official was said to be a vague email when Diamond took action to go with the backup bidder.
Lack of leadership. Lack of communication. Lack of candidness. This is shocking, it is disrespectful.
If I were a cynical person, I would think that all the positive and hopeful atmosphere we have since January, especially Robert Gorin, is aimed at one thing, but only one thing, to prevent valuable, irreplaceable employees from sinking the diamonds under the waves, making it irreplaceable. Give them a taste of hope, paint a rose-colored photo of the bankruptcy process, distracting them and running out of clocks.
Anyone who currently has a diamond with holiday or sick leave should burn it. Just called sick every day until the stupid drama ended. Prioritize your mental health. So, what if the work is not completed? This is not our problem.
This is the way Diamond ends – play stupid games.
Like these events, ridiculous and dramatic, please keep the people working in Diamonds, Alliances, CGAs and the rest. As a journalist, introduce this story fairly and accurately (I hope) to tax me. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have as your daily work life.
